January 11, 1961

Emily Balch Dies; Won Nobel Prize

Special to The New York Times

Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 10--Emily Greene Balch, a leader of the pacifist movement throughout
the world and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, died here yesterday at the age of 94.

Miss Balch had been living in the Vernon Nursing Home here since December, 1956. Before
that she made her home in Wellesley for many years.

Surviving are three sisters, Miss Elizabeth B. Balch of Cambridge and Miss Marion C. Balch and
Mrs. Robert Bowditch Stone, both of Jamaica Plain.

Lost Teaching Job

Miss Balch lost her college teaching job because she was an outspoken pacifist. Some years
later she won the Nobel Peace Prize for the same reason.

All who knew this forthright, earnest New England woman knew that this recognition was the
result of a change in the times, not a change in Miss Balch. Social worker, economist as well as
a college professor, she began her new career in 1918 at the age of 52, having firmly and forever
declared herself against war.

Miss Balch, who described herself as "only the plainest of New England spinsters and ex-
teachers," was a founder of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. One of
her closest associates was Jane Addams, who served the league as president while Miss Balch
was its secretary-treasurer.

Born in Jamaica Plain on Jan. 8, 1867, Miss Balch studied social work at Bryn Mawr College,
receiving an A.B. degree with its first graduating class, in 1889. Her teaching career was
prefaced by field work in social service under Jacob Riis in New York, the study of political
economy in Paris, a job as a settlement-house worker in Boston and more study at the University
of Chicago and the University of Berlin.

In 1896, when she returned from Germany, she became an assistant in economics at Wellesley
College. By 1913 she was Professor of Economics and Political and Social Science there.

Served In Military Hospitals

Miss Balch was a delegate to the International Congress of Women at The Hague, the
Netherlands, in 1915, after her interest in world peace had already taken firm hold. It was
enhanced during World War I, when, on leave from the college, she served overseas in military
hospitals.

She was among the authors of the peace proposals that came out of the 1915 meeting and the
formation of a Women's International Committee for Permanent Peace, which later became the
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

In 1916, Miss Balch served in Stockholm, Sweden, on the Neutral Conference for Continuous
Meditation established by Henry Ford and she drew up a study of "International Colonial
Administration." When she returned to the United States she worked actively against United
States entry into the war.

During her anti-war activity Miss Balch tried to relieve Wellesley of embarrassment by
remaining on leave of absence. When the war ended in 1918 the trustees refused to renew her
appointment.

Miss Balch then moved full time into the peace movement. She became secretary-treasurer of
the league and established its headquarters at Geneva. She left the post in 1922 because of ill
health, but in 1934, when it became involved in financial troubles, took up the job again for
eighteen months without pay.

Studied Haitian Conditions

In 1930, Miss Balch accompanied a commission appointed by President Herbert Hoover to study
conditions in occupied Haiti. She wrote much of the final report, and her subsequent writings,
lectures and other persuasions were said to have greatly influenced the withdrawal of the United
States Marine Corps from that country.

Wellesley made its peace with Miss Balch on Armistice Day in 1935, when she was invited to be
the college's official speaker. In 1946, when she was nominated for the peace prize, which she
shared with the late Dr. John R. Mott, she was recommended for the honor by Mildred McAfee
Horton, Wellesley's president.

Miss Balch donated her $17,000 share of the prize to the Women's International League for
Peace and Freedom.

When World War II broke out Miss Balch reported she "went through a long and painful mental
struggle". Her pacifism did not prevent her from opposing Adolf Hitler, but her opposition took
the form of help to sufferers from Nazi cruelty.

Although in failing health in recent years, Miss Balch was still able to serve as honorary
chairman of the Women's International League and, in 1959, as co-chairman of a committee of
sixty notables to mark the 100th anniversary of Jane Addams' birth.

Miss Balch, who was born into a Unitarian family, joined the Society of Friends in 1921 and
remained a Quaker the rest of her life.